To put it bluntly, as a blanket statement, I love this game. It has a very odd learning curve and an interesting story to uncover and is very fun to write a review on. 8/10
To also put it equally bluntly, this game spikes my cortisol levels, and my shoulders haven’t relaxed since.
White Knuckle, developed by Dark Machine Games It is an indie horror climbing game with one simple premise.
Just.
KEEP.
CLIMBING.
And for what it’s worth, it is very VERY good at this premise; movement is fluid and incredibly immersive. Over time it almost becomes an extension of your own body, with you controlling the grip of your hands through the right and left mouse buttons. However, you cannot climb forever; you are only human (maybe?). This gives me time to address its intuitive stamina system and is one of the many reasons for the years this game shaved off my life due to the stress.
White to Bloody Knuckles
Given the title of the game, your hands, by default, are white. This makes sense; it allows for you to see them easily against the dark grainy views this game gives you.
Now given the lack of a heads-up display in White Knuckle, how would it display the amount of stamina you possess to climb over that one… last… lip…?
The answer?
your HANDS.
As you continuously climb, your hands will go from white to pink to red, giving a rough estimation of the current grip strength the climber can muster before slipping and falling to an impeccable doom.
Not knowing how close you are to slipping makes the whole experience incredibly stressful for a first run and any subsequent run to follow, if your stress can take it.
The Fall…
Eventually, you will fall. With falling comes failing and being consumed by one of the many threats posed by this game, let it be an ever-climbing mass discovered very early in the game or the many smaller threats such as bugs, barnacles, and the environment itself. Failing means starting over, where the roguelike elements rear their heads.
This is shown through the mutation system. At every interlude of the game, there is a machine, which you can inject the climber with many different DNA mutations from, ranging from stronger back muscles for faster climbing to transforming their bladder to release a pulse, allowing them to jump off of thin air, or perhaps allowing their limbs to stretch to elastic levels. These augments keep every climb fresh and interesting, letting no two runs be the same.
Ambiance… or lack of…
This game relies heavily on the ambiance of its environments and almost entirely omits non-dietetic sounds aside from music used sparingly in more action-packed moments. Most of the sound comes from you. the sounds of your feet hitting cold concrete and metal, your hands clutching to anything within reach, your grip failing as the handhold you found having given way, other than you (and the things after you) is the intercom system of the substructure, coming in with a loud eerie chime followed by its harsh buzzing overtone with a monotonic voice giving general announcements regarding the substructure, announcing to an empty hole. In a way, it’s your only friend, the only constant in the climb of thousands of meters to a hopeful safety.
Criticisms.
I love this game; I found it incredibly hard to find something to criticize when it came to it, and that should speak wonders to its design and game feel. However, my main gripes are two things: the abundance of luck due to its roguelike elements and the taxing, stressful nature of long play sessions.
The roguelike mutation system is wonderful; however, it can make or break a run depending on what you get, ranging from powerful mutations like elastic limbs or a double jump to detrimental effects that make you slower, heavier, or completely disallow the use of pivotal items needed to aid in your ascent.
The stress of this game is taxing, with a need for breaks to be truly enjoyed; getting so close to escape just to fall and have to start from the very bottom of the substructure is breaking, and due to this, the game may stop being tense and begin being taxing.
The Summit.
White Knuckle is a game about slipping away and the eventual fall, but also the determination to keep climbing. I would highly recommend this game to anyone with a love of horror and a drive for the challenging endeavors in life; for me, I’ve already recommended this game to friends, and now I recommend it to you.
You can find White Knuckle on Steam for a reasonable price of around 15 dollars (as of March 2026).